Millions of people in the United States have pets, most commonly cats or dogs. In urban environments these animals are usually kept indoors, and rely upon their owners for food and water.
Most people simply use a dish or bowl placed on the floor or ground to feed and water their pets. This arrangement is not only susceptible to infestation by insects, but the feeding area also becomes quite easily soiled by spillage of food and water while the pet is eating and/or drinking.
Additionally, and particularly in the case of dogs, the size of the animals varies considerably. It is generally recognized that an animal's food and/or water should be placed at a height convenient for the animal, e.g., at a level that does not require the animal to assume an unnatural stance, with its head and neck stretched to a lowered position. Thus, while locating a feeding dish upon the floor or ground may be suitable for a small animal, it is generally regarded as unsatisfactory for larger animals, such as a German Shepard or Great Dane, for example.
Various efforts have been made in the prior art to provide solutions to the above problems. For instance, a number of pet feeding devices have been developed for supporting food and/or water at an elevated position convenient for the animal. Examples of such devices are disclosed in prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,845,896, 3,651,787, 4,044,723 and 4,065,195. All of these pet feeding devices are placed upon the floor or ground when in use, thus hindering cleaning of the area around the feeding device. This also makes such devices particularly susceptible to infestation by insects. Moreover, such conventional devices must be retrieved from their usual location and stored in a different place whenever it is desired or necessary to treat the area for insects and/or other pests, and the feeding device itself has no means for repelling or inhibiting insects.
Some animal feeding devices have been developed for preventing or reducing infestation of the animal's food by insects, and especially by crawling insects. Examples of such prior art devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,802,302 and 4,803,954. These devices consist of separable housing portions having an insecticide or insect inhibiting means placed between the separable housing portions. They are intended to be placed directly upon the floor or ground, or other supporting surface, and have no means for preventing inadvertant and undesireable movement of the receptacles while an animal is feeding from them.
Other food-holding supports of general interest are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,601,040, 2,574,250, 2,660,981 and 3,776,193. These devices do not contemplate any means for preventing infestation by insects, nor do they suggest placement at different elevations in order to optimize the feeding stance of a pet, or of means to immobilize the feeding device while the animal is eating or drinking.